In the fourth century, the Church faced a dangerous heresy called Donatism. The Donatists argued that if a priest was a sinner, his sacraments were invalid. If the bishop was not holy, his baptisms did not count.

The Church rejected this. She taught that the authority of the office is distinct from the virtue of the man holding it.

Today, we see a political version of this heresy deployed against those who defend the nation-state. The critic looks at the leaders of the Right -- their moral failures, their compromises, their "neoliberal" tendencies -- and argues that because these men are flawed, the laws they enforce are illegitimate. They argue that we cannot enforce the border because the people enforcing it are "hypocrites."

This is not a moral argument. It is a tactic of demoralization.

The Validity of the Watchman

The State exists to perform specific functions mandated by the Natural Law. One of these is the protection of the community from external threats and the regulation of entry. This duty exists regardless of who sits in the president's chair.

If a police officer stops a murder, the act is just. It does not matter if the officer is cheating on his wife. It does not matter if he is greedy. His personal sin does not cancel his public duty.

The critic wants us to believe that unless the defenders of the border are morally spotless, the border should not exist. This is a trap. Since no human being is spotless, this logic leads inevitably to the dissolution of all law. It is a recipe for anarchy cloaked in the language of moral superiority.

The Smokescreen of "Neoliberalism"

The critic accuses the Right of being "neoliberal" and "liberal by definition." This is a linguistic sleight of hand designed to confuse the defender.

By accusing the conservative of being a "liberal," the critic hopes to disarm him. He hopes the conservative will say, "Oh no, I must prove I am virtuous by agreeing with your critique." And before he knows it, the conservative has agreed to the critic's premise: that the current order is so rotten it deserves to be dismantled.

But we must look at the fruit. The critic attacks the "neoliberalism" of the Right not to restore a just economy, but to justify the importation of a new electorate that will secure the power of the Left. It is a cynical power play masked as philosophical critique.

The Perfect and the Good

The Christian realist knows that politics is not the realm of the perfect. It is the realm of the possible.

We support the enforcement of the border not because we worship the Republican Party. We support it because the alternative is the erasure of the political community. We support the police not because every cop is a saint, but because the alternative is the rule of the mob.

The critic says, "You guys are a bunch of liberals." Let them throw their labels. It does not matter. What matters is the reality of the thing being defended. A nation is a home. A home has walls. To tear down those walls because the father is imperfect is not an act of justice. It is an act of patricide.

Conclusion: Holding the Line

We must not let the accuser shame us into silence. The strategy of the modern Marxist is to highlight the speck in the eye of the conservative so that we cannot see the log being used to batter down the gates of the city.

We admit our leaders are sinners. We admit our party is flawed. But we insist that the law is the law, and the border is the border. We will not hand over the keys of the city to the mob simply because the watchman has a stain on his uniform.